Let the Blessings Grab You!!!

I started reading the Bible and connecting the dots. I don't know if it was my upbringing or if it was being called, but this stuff made sense. I started going to Fellowship (that's what they called it) twice a week, I couldn't get enough of the Bible. At some point along the way I started to know that God was with me and that I was on the right track. There wasn't a grand moment of conversion or being filled with the Holy Spirit, I just knew I was born again and one of God's children. I even tithed, which for a Jew is big.

I had been on the transplant list for about a year and a half. Every time I got to the top someone sicker would knock me down. By this point I had given up and resolved myself to about another five good years. In that, my body was requiring more and more rest resulting in work, sleep, work, sleep. I didn't have the energy to do anything else.

Three days after my 25th birthday the pager went off. I had worked the night before and it was about one in the afternoon, my midnight. I didn't know what to do, I freaked out big. Mom told me to call them back and find out what it was. It was the real deal, they had a liver coming in from Tulsa with my name on it and I needed to be at the hospital two seconds ago. I called my boss to let him know I wouldn't be in for a while. And we were off. The rest of the day went pretty much like the last time except they didn't tell me to go home.

My memory for the next couple of days is spotty. Like, I remember begging for ice in ICU, which would have been about two hours after the surgery; but I don't remember being in my room until day three. That's when Dan caught me staring at my hand. I was alone and just fascinated with my hand. Dan came in and asked, "How you doing Matt," in a very couscous tone.

I looked at him and replied, "I'm White!"

He responded, "Thats because you have a new liver."

Over the next week I slowly regained my ability to focus. The doctors pushed getting up and walking the 'Track'. Which was basically the hallway of the floor I was on. Some very interesting things occurred on this track. For one I finally told my mother that I had converted. Her response was, "Oh! This is just a fad, you'll get over it once you're well."

I don't know, 8 years and I'm still a Christian.

Another was Dan showing me that it had been less then a week since I first tithed and now I had a new liver. And wasn't that the best blessing I could have received. I guess that is where I wanted to end this post. God is truly wanting to bless you more than you could ask or think and all it takes sometimes is giving.

Call From the Governor!!!!

So I went to the chemo guy yesterday and I'm 130lbs that's a loss of 2lbs, but I did lose two days of food due to feeling like crap. Other than that my white count is up, liver is not enlarged, and lymph glands in my neck are down. So that was a very good visit.

Saw the liver guy today and I told him about the PET scan and what Dr. Parker said about not being able to get it out of the liver. Liver guy said, "Oh! When the chemo is done we'll go in with a small needle and burn them out. I have a guy that specializes in that. It's outpatient, just like a biopsy." That means gone, dead, out of the body, NO TWO YEAR DEATH SENTENCE! Maybe.

Finally, we can read this blog

without constantly looking for our red pens! I've been proofreading, so hopefully we can all read this thing a lot more easily! -Jen

P.S. I love you Matty, in spite of your spelling. :)

"Hi! I'm Billy Bob Goldstein."

I left off with this profound brick in my face, and this left me with the question, "Why did I convert to Christianity?"

It took me a while to remember the logic behind that decision; because of all the drugs over the years my memory is holey. And I have tried to come up with a short way to explain this, but have not yet, so get ready for another long one.

I was born Jewish in Michigan where there is a solid Jewish community and Michiganites tend to have a leave you alone attitude. This meant it wasn't hard being different up there. When I was 7 my mother moved us to Oklahoma, where I still reside. The religion that makes up about 90% of this great state is Christian and most of that is Baptist and Evangelical. We as a culture are pretty laid back except for one's faith. If you aren't Christian you need to be saved. That makes being Jewish rough.

My experience with Christianity up to this point in the story had lead me to Hate the religion as a whole. Think about it, if every day of your life from 7 to 24 you're told by a certain group that you are wrong and and they're right; and then you go home where you're told they're wrong and you're right; wouldn't that just screw you up? My mother to this day refers to Christians as cults (we don't talk much about faith).

Remember I just read that the main dude of another religion came for me! So I talked to Dan. He once again asks me to go to this Bible study group thing. Further enticing me with the fact that the guy that leads it knows the Bible backwards and forwards, and the Old Testament better then most Rabis. So I go.

I have never been one for theatrics, snake handling or cutting oneself in the name of JC. It was held at the preacher's house, which a preacher he wasn't, and the entire congregation didn't number more than 50 (that night about 5). When we got there every one was nice and looked normal, but during the opening prayer they spoke in tongues. God was the only thing that kept me from bolting right then! I can't remember what the sermon was on, but I know I got a lot out of it. The major thing that came from this is that I started reading the Bible cover to cover. I needed to know if this was the Truth.

Now to explain the title: There is this comedian named Steven Wright. And he has this joke that I think goes nicely with the fact that I'm a Jew in Oklahoma. It goes like this.

I was riding the bus the other day and a beautiful Asian girl sat down next to me. After a while she turned to me and said, "I find Jewish Cowboys really Hot!"

I replied, "Hi! I'm Billy Bob Goldstein."

Housekeeping

Time for a break, the last few were heavy.

So I fixed the comment posting thing, you no longer need a google account to post a comment. I also added two new sections, Quotes and Links. If you have any of these that are cool or relevant send them my way, I'll post them.

And finally the disclaimer may be going away. Dan told me how to add a guest editor. So when Jen gets home I'll add her.

Seeing Angels

So I go back to work and some months pass. Dan and I are talking a lot more about the possibility that the Bible might have something interesting in it, but I still have not read it. Then this new girl started working the day shift. She was mousy, thick and a major nerd (grad of star fleet academy, not a college). It was only a matter of weeks before we start dating.

Note to my wife:
I will make this as painless as possible. Promise!

So this girl was some kind of Christian who was saving herself for marriage, like I cared at the time. Well, it started to get serious and we entered couple hood. One night she was working with me for a few hours and it was really busy. She called for help on the safe, it was jammed. I ran over and dropped something on the ground kneeled to pick it up, turned on my knees and was about to get back up when I saw a glowing image standing right behind her. All I could think was this was important to my future somehow. The thing spoke nothing that I could here and no one seemed to notice it. So I shook my head and got back to work.

A couple of nights later we were at her house and I was trying to fix a kitchen drawer and getting madder and madder at it. I was throwing things and cussing and scaring her. It got to the point where all I could see was red. She calmly asked me to leave it alone and I huffed into the living room still seeing red.

Time for a little recap of my life so far. I'm about 24 here with terminal liver disease and have been on the transplant list about nine months with no end in sight. I have no faith to speak of other than a desire to find the answers to life before I die, which at this point is a few years away. I'm sitting in my girlfriend's living room seeing red because I can't even fix a draw slide. And then another weird thing happened, a very quiet voice in my head said, "Read the book."

And for some reason I asked back, "Where should I start?"

"The New Testament!" was all I got back.

So I asked my girlfriend if I could see her Bible for a bit. She went and got it and I sat down and opened the Bible for the first time in my life. I went quickly to the New Testament and was amazed that the first book was ME! (Matthew, how's that for being humble). I began to read from the first verse. I don't know how long I read, but I stopped when I got to the following verse:

Matthew 15:24 But He (JC) answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Now I know now about looking at the context of a verse for the message of it, but I had no idea then. And it hit me like a brick between the eyes. Here I am reading a book with my name on it and the main guy just said he came for ME! They (my Jewish faith) never told me this!!! He didn't come for the gentiles, he didn't come for the starving in Africa, he didn't even come for the non believers; He came for US!! (Jews)

So I stopped reading, this I needed to process!

Ok, Last new post for today.

Promise.

So this is chemo week and saw the doctor yesterday. 132 lbs!!!!!! That's two more pounds, your prayers and thoughts are working. Remember chemo patients don't gain weight!

Well Done

So I like watching "Inside the Actors Studio," just for the questions at the end. My favorite one is, "If heaven exist what would you like to hear when you get there?" My answer has always been the following.

You can find moor of his stuff here www.lifechurch.tv

Native Amercian Givers

First I must say I don't have anything negative to say about Native Americans, I just hate the PC police so every chance I get I like to make jokes about them.

So it's about six month after the pager around 5pm on some day. I'm asleep because I work nights. I'm woken by the strange buzzing sound, then I realize it's the pager. I jump out of bed, grab the pager, call the number, and yell at mom to get ready to go. They say they have a liver for me and to get to the hospital admitting asap. I call my boss and let him know to get someone to cover my shift and I'll call him when I come to. This is a lot like having a baby, I imagine, with the exceptions that there is no baby and everyone is moving fast, including the patient. OH! and no contractions!

We get to the hospital in about 10 minutes. I get checked in and sent to nine east, the liver floor as its known. By this time my sis and aunt are there. I don't know if this is a Jewish thing but it always seems the women are always at your bedside and the men, if they are there, are in the hall-wanting to go home.

The nurses give me the gown and let me know that before they can do anything I need to be clean for the surgery. That went over my head too. They meant enemas. I must say although not fun, it is easier then the current prep for a colonoscopy. I had to have three of these things, which the nurses thought was the all time lowest record. They said it normally takes 10. Then they put the IV in me and we waited for a couple of hours for the doctors to get everything ready.

Its about 11pm and they wheel me down the prep room into the OR. This is not the OR but like a little room off to the side with nothing in it and cold. At about 11:30pm Dr. Nour (he will be introduced latter) comes in and lets us know that the liver, although a match, is in worse condition than mine and someone more sick than me is going to get it. Yes! They are Native American Givers.

I can't say I was too upset, I was only freaking out major at the time. So for them to say go home it's a false alarm was nice and it gave us an idea how it would go when it was real.

They wheeled me back up to my room, unhooked the IV, gave me my clothes, and let me go home. At home I went back to sleep while mom was on the phone clucking like a hen to the rest of the family.

"The Waiting is the Hardest Part"

That was Tom Petty for you youngins.

So about a month later I had my second meeting with the transplant team. This time they gave me the pager and told me to never be without it. Also if it went off to call the number and do what they say. And you can't leave the state because they need you to be within a two hour driving distance. They informed me that I was about at the middle of the pack on the list and it could possibly be six months.

!!!Warning!!! This may offend some.
Now the list is national, regional, and state wide depending on where the organ is harvested. For example if that place is Tulsa they go to the person who is closest to Tulsa that matches the organ. First they check the State of Oklahoma, then the region which I think is Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, and Colorado (it's different for every state), and finally if time allows they go national. More info can be found here http://www.optn.org/.

By this time I had just started working at the 7-eleven store where I met Dan. If your keeping track of both stories. I continued going to clinic about every month and doing lab each time. For six months, I had that pager next to me and it never went off, talk about a watched pot. Dan spent most of this time trying to get me to go to Dallas for the day- for one last blast with the liver and some fun. I think he liked my liver more than I did, he always wanted me to save it and put it on the mantle as a conversation piece. Now he says, "Look if you would have kept the liver and the colon you would have a collection!"

OHHH!!! If I Only had a Liver!

So after Bookmans year of torture, he sends me to the transplant clinic. This is when I meet one of the best doctors in the world (I'm not kidding), Dr. Wright. He is a gastroenterologist, he really knows peoples butts. But thats an understatement, he know almost every thing there is to know about liver transplantation and its effects on the body. To top it all he has the best bedside manner, he should be studied and a course should be made out of his techniques that every doctor should have to take to become one. Because of these traits he is the busiest person I ever met. Your appointment may be 9 but you wont see him till 10:30. See look at how big of an introduction I gave his, he is The Good.

There is a lot that happens at the clinic and fast. Wright performs all the same things Bookman did and more and in about 4 months. My head was spinning just a little by this point. He did my first colonoscopy, now thats a story.

So I'm about 23, 24 and he said he wanted to do this thing and I ask what happens. If you don't know thats when they shove a tube the wrong way up you. Oh! and thats not the bad part. The bad part is the prep which for the sake of my own psyche I can not go into. Well I do the prep and show up to the thing, get into the gown, get on the table where I can only see the monitor. He comes in and with him a hear a bunch of rustling, by the way all my glory is open to the world at this point. He leaned down, look me in the eye and asked if I minded a few spectators in the form of student gastros. I looked around and saw about 5 other people in white coats with note pads staring back at me or rather my special purpose. What do you say to that question? I looked back at him and said, "Well, they've already seen the good stuff! Why not."

At the clinic there is pre and post transplant patients and you don't see the actual transplant team until you have been worked up by the pretransplant team. For me that was Dr. Wright. The time they take to work you up depends on a lot of factors; the big ones are age, health, and the likelihood of survival. I don't know if my work up was fast, but I know they were really interested in me due to my age and health. Most transplantees at the time were old and in poor health, so the likelihood of survival was not always good. The younger the better. Now they mostly perform transplant on the really young (like 3 and under) or the older and sicker. Medicine has gotten better over the last 8 years. But back then I was a golden child at 24.

After the work up you have the first meeting with the transplant team. This is were the tell you your chance of survival, your chance of getting on the list, where you might be on the list, how long they think you'll be on the list, and they answer any questions you have. They did one more thing with me. They had the anesthesiologist talk to me. He said, "People who don't smoke tend to wake up from anesthesia."

I haven't had a cigarette since that day.